Joe McFadden
Health reporter

In its response to the Ockenden review, the government announced that anyone responsible for failures would be compelled to give evidence to investigations into poor maternity care.

But how will this work?

While statutory inquiries can compel witnesses to give evidence under oath, independent reviews do not have this power.

The government is suggesting they will use duty of candour laws in the Public Office (Accountability) Bill - also known as the Hillsborough Law Bill - which is currently going through Parliament.

The government intends to use this in the upcoming Leeds and Sussex maternity reviews, after some senior leaders refused to take part in the Nottingham review.

But it's still unclear how exactly this will be enforced.

The press conference held by the families has drawn to a close, but our reporter at the Crowne Plaza in Nottingham will be speaking to them separately shortly.

Michael Buchanan
Social Affairs Correspondent, BBC News

In November 2018, more than 50 staff at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre signed an open letter to health bosses warning the hospital's maternity services were in crisis and urgent action was needed.

The letter cited chronic understaffing, a scarcity of critical safety equipment and a "dire lack of leadership".

However, management reaction to the letter was "inadequate", its author told me recently. It was effectively ignored.

As the findings of the Nottingham maternity review reveals the shocking extent of mistakes that were made, what happened to that letter in 2018 goes to the heart of why maternity care in England is viewed as failing too many families.

Read more here.

Addressing the trust directly, Gary Andrews - whose daughter Wynter died 23 minutes after being born in 2019 - said: "If you'd listened to concerns, there would be hundreds of babies still alive.

"Wynter would still be here - and her brother would not be looking at a gravestone."

In 2023 NUH were fined £800,000 after admitting failings in Wynter's care. At the time it was the largest handed out to an NHS trust over maternity care.

Image source, PA Media

On the question of a statutory public inquiry - which would compel witnesses to give evidence and something the families have called for today - Health Secretary James Murray said: "I just want to be clear, no options are off the table."

Emily Stringer - whose daughter Caitlyn suffered serious injuries - said the families "recognise there were good staff" who were working in a "bad environment".

"They were also victims," she said.

"Only accountability can incentivise that culture change in maternity services."

Families at the press conference in Nottingham are now answering questions from the media.

Sarah Hawkins - bereaved parent of daughter Harriet and a whistleblower of the maternity scandal, alongside Dr Jack Hawkins - said she felt let down by those who cared for her.

Sarah was a senior physiotherapist and Jack was a consultant doctor.

She said: "We dedicated our careers to the NHS - I thought I would trust my colleagues - I was low risk. Then to be treated during my six-day labour like I was, I couldn't compute it.

"After Harriet died - the cover-up was horrific, we knew this because we knew the system."

Asked what accountability looks like moving forward, Jack added those who cared for Sarah and Harriet should be "brought before the courts".

Image source, BBC/Chris Waring

Warning: This post contains details that some may find distressing

Murray has also detailed the way in which the bodies of dead babies were wrongly handled by NUH.

His voice faltered as he said failures at maternity services showed there was a "level of disrespect and lack of humanity that, I’ll be honest, left me aghast".

He said babies were referred to as a "specimen or sample", that a baby was placed in a mortuary space which was already occupied by an "unknown and unrelated adult", a baby disposed of as clinical waste against the wishes of their parents, and another baby's body kept in a domestic fridge in a bereavement room.

He told MPs: "The emotional and psychological effect of these dehumanising failures was to lay out the most profound disrespect on the most unbearable distress. There is also evidence that the trust actively decided not to report failings in mortuary care to families."

He said he had asked NHS England to write to trusts to ensure failings were not repeated elsewhere.

He added the Human Tissue Authority would require all mortuaries to review internal records over the last decade to ensure all incidents had been logged and reported. Staff will have to report back by 16 October.

Continuing to address the House of Commons, Health Secretary James Murray apologised to the families affected.

He said: "To all of those who have suffered so appallingly, I say today on behalf of the NHS, I am sorry.

"I am sorry, not just for the failures or the heartless and undignified treatment, but also because your cries of concern went unheard for too long.

"And so the government will act. We will act by taking immediate steps, including to expand Martha's Rule to all maternity in neonatal settings, so that parents can demand a second opinion if they feel their concerns are being ignored."

Image source, Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Health Secretary James Murray told the Commons he met families taking part in the maternity review last week.

He said: "I felt numb after hearing the depth of their pain. I felt even more numb when I considered how many families not in the room went through such a trauma too, and the forgotten children who survived but lived with the consequences of failings in maternity care every day.

"I felt devastated that so many women and babies, as well as their fathers and other family members, had suffered injury, death and lasting trauma whilst under the care of the NHS.

"Now, having met the families and having seen the report, I feel appalled by the neglect, incompetence, racism, discrimination, contempt and harassment that so many suffered.

"I feel heartbroken to know that at so many times, when they tried to raise the alarm about their care, they were ignored, sneered at, disbelieved, blamed and lied to."

Meanwhile, Health Secretary James Murray has starting addressing the findings of Ockenden's review in the House of Commons.

He described the revelations as "chilling".

Murray said: "Donna Ockenden’s review is the largest ever into a maternity service in the history of the NHS.

"The nature and sheer scale of the failings it exposes are horrific. It uncovers dangerously and tragically deficient care at almost every turn."

Our political editor Pete Saull, who has been watching Murray's address, said several MPs were visibly moved as he delivered his statement.

Addressing the press conference, Jack added: "The time has come for there to be a statutory public inquiry across England.

"Every family affected deserves the truth and accountability."

We heard earlier that some senior leaders had refused to take part in Ockenden's review, leading the government to announce a raft of measures to boost accountability - including ensuring that NHS staff who refuse to engage in future reviews are compelled to do so, or face up to two years in prison.

Jack said: "The fact significant senior staff chose not to take part in this review is appalling - to them maternity safety does not matter, but their reputation does.

"Questions must be asked whether these people are fit to continue to work in the NHS."

Jack has told the press conference that families were "horrified" by what staff members at NUH shared with the review, and that they should be "properly supported" in their jobs.

Jack said the actions for learning identified in Ockenden's review "must be treated with the utmost seriousness".

He added: "Anything less would be a betrayal of the families."

Jack added: "Some of the themes identified are ones that we had direct and personal experience of - our concerns were dismissed and not acted upon - we were not told the truth, even after death.

"The hospital frequently failed to keep our loved ones safe."

Dr Jack Hawkins - whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016 - is speaking at the press conference.

He said: "The relentless, and at times, unbearable 10-year campaign, has resulted in the profound sadness and deep sense of anger that we learn of the full extent of the scandal at NUH."

A press conference is due to start shortly where we will hear reaction from bereaved families who shared their stories with the inquiry.

We will bring you the latest lines as soon as things get under way.

Wynter Andrews died 23 minutes after she was born in 2019.

Her father Gary was listening to Donna Ockenden’s speech this afternoon.

He told BBC Radio Nottingham: “This can't be ignored now, it is too important. It shouldn't have taken families all this time to be heard.

“You’ve got a situation where senior leaders are so concerned about reputational management that they don’t want families to understand the harm they received.

“We were told it was just one of those things, and yet in the weeks that followed I found an article about Harriet Hawkins and it was almost a copy and paste job of what happened to Wynter.

“We need action. We need change.

“I felt like Donna was this Mary Poppins character who one day has to leave, but she’s sticking around for a bit longer to make sure that these changes happen.”

Donna Ockenden told the BBC she hopes the process of "family feedback" will provide families with "the answers they have waited for so long".

Families are expected to receive their feedback by the end of 2026 at the latest.

Each family in the maternity review is assigned a case number. The lower the number, the sooner they will receive their feedback, as the numbers reflect the order in which cases were added to the review.

"I suspect the vast majority of families will receive their report and won't have further questions. However, there are various options depending on the family's needs and how serious, or not, our findings are," Ockenden said.

"I have said that where mothers have died, even where the care is appropriate, we will offer an opportunity for face-to-face meetings in Nottingham. In addition, for all families where we find major concerns, they will be offered the opportunity, if they want it, for face-to-face meetings.

"We will also offer virtual meetings and telephone conversations - no-one is on their own on receipt of their family feedback."